Arthur Victor Berger (May 15, 1912 – October 7, 2003) was an American composer and music critic who has been described as a New Mannerist.

Biography

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, during which time he joined the Young Composer's Group, as a graduate student under

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Ha ...

at Harvard, and with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

and at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

under a Paine Fellowship. He taught briefly at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

and Brooklyn College, then worked briefly at the ''

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'' and then for a longer period of time at the '' New York Herald Tribune''. In 1953 he left the paper to teach at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

where he was eventually named the

Irving Fine Irving Gifford Fine (December 3, 1914 – August 23, 1962) was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. Composer Virgil Thomson described Fine's "unusual melodic grace" while Aaron Copland noted ...

Professor Emeritus. His notable students there included

Gustav Ciamaga Gustav Ciamaga (April 10, 1930 – June 11, 2011) was a Canadian composer, music educator, and writer. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he was best known for his compositions of electroni ...

and

Richard Wernick Richard Wernick (born January 16, 1934, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American composer. He is best known for his chamber and vocal works. His composition ''Visions of Terror and Wonder'' won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Career Wernick b ...

. He taught occasionally at the New England Conservatory during his retirement. He co-founded (with Benjamin Boretz), in 1962, '' Perspectives of New Music'', which he edited until 1964. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1971. He wrote the first book on

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

(reprinted 1990, Da Capo Press), and coined the terms ''

octatonic scale An octatonic scale is any eight- note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetric ...

'' and '' pitch centricity'' in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". He died in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts, age 91.

Works

His works show a preoccupation with vertical and horizontal musical space (see

pitch space In music theory, pitch spaces model relationships between pitches. These models typically use distance to model the degree of relatedness, with closely related pitches placed near one another, and less closely related pitches placed farther apa ...

). His musical influences include Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and later

Anton Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...

. In the forties he composed neoclassical works including ''Serenade Concertante'' (1944) and ''Three Pieces for Strings'' (1945), and embraced the twelve-tone technique in the 1950s. His later works moved away from serialism but continued to use tone cluster 'cells' whose

pitch class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...

es are displaced by octaves.

George Perle George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, and ...

has described his "keen and sophisticated musical intellect" and praised "his serial music or beingas far removed from current fashionable trends as his diatonic music was a few years ago." Perle further praises his ''String Quartet'': "in the quartet, as in Berger's earlier works, and in most of the great music of our Western heritage, timbre, texture, dynamics, rhythm, and form are elements of a musical language whose syntax and grammar are essentially derived from pitch relations. If these elements never seem specious and arbitrary, as they do with so many of the dodecaphonic productions that deluge us today from both the left and right, it is precisely because of the authenticity and integrity of his musical thinking at this basic level."(1980).
Liner notes: ''Form''
", newworldrecords.org; accessed 22 November 2015. His works include ''Ideas of Order'', ''Polyphony'', ''Quartet for Winds'', described by Thomson as "one of the most satisfactory pieces for winds in the whole modern repertory", ''String Quartet'' (1958), ''Five Pieces for Piano'' (1969) and ''Septet'' (1965–66). He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berger is grouped in the " Boston school" along with

Lukas Foss Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...

, Alexei Haieff,

Harold Shapero Harold Samuel Shapero (April 29, 1920 – May 17, 2013) was an American composer. Early years Shapero was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1920. He and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a chi ...

, and

Claudio Spies Carlos Claudio Spies (March 26, 1925 – April 2, 2020) was a Chilean-American composer. Biography Early life Born in Santiago, Chile, of German Jewish parents, Spies completed primary and secondary education in Santiago in 1941, when he p ...

References

External links

Arthur Berger Official WebsiteArthur Berger papers
in th
Music Division
o

* The online music revie
La Folia
has an article about Berger

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, October 10, 2003 (retrieved January 31, 2010)

March 28, 1987 {{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Arthur 1912 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century classical composers Twelve-tone and serial composers American classical composers American male classical composers Jewish American classical composers American expatriates in France Musicians from New York City Brandeis University faculty Brooklyn College faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Mills College faculty New England Conservatory faculty New York University alumni University of Paris alumni Pupils of Darius Milhaud Pupils of Walter Piston 20th-century American male musicians

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links